Large amounts of institutional knowledge may remain locked in email communications. Not all of this knowledge need be opaque to others though it may remain confidential within the institution. Specifically, due to the private nature of email communication, those not privy to a particular email cannot benefit from the knowledge contained in the email. Additionally, individuals, may find it difficult to locate information within their own email accounts because the emails are not categorized. Moreover, even when some individuals have categorized their emails, the categories across mailboxes of various individuals do not match. For example, the same email may be in different categorical email folders of different people such as “SMB” (i.e., small and medium business), “smallbusiness,” “SME” (i.e., small and medium enterprise), or even “MomAndPopBusiness.” Considering the preceding, it is difficult for different individuals to arrive at a common terminology of categorization.
Considering institutional stores of information internet or intranet pages such as wikis are inefficient because duplicative effort is required to create such pages and simultaneously communicate or notify others about the content of such pages to the correct parties. Wikis are network pages that can be collaboratively edited in terms of content and structure. Moreover, users must learn a new editing and formatting scheme, which hinders adoption and use.
Mailing lists may help reduce duplicative effort but additional effort is required to create, maintain, and discover mailing lists. By allowing institutions to tap into this vast and valuable information resource, many efficiencies can be gained and productivity can be increased.